Yes, you read that correctly!
First of all, this is technically my last post for February so it should really be my Eyes and Ears post. But . . . I need a few more days to finish up the book I’m reading so that I can include it for this month. It’ll be ready to go on Monday.
Second of all, we ended up having such a crazy weekend that I figured I should get it out of my head and into blog infamy while it’s fresh in my mind.
We had planned on going to the cottage with Rita, Sarah, Brian, Tommy, and Eleanor last Friday morning through Monday afternoon, which meant Thursday was spent prepping and packing. I picked up some essentials on my Target run.

Rita rode with us, so I sat in one of the third row seats surrounded by ALLLL the stuff. It actually worked out really well for me. The girls were on their iPads in the middle seats, Matty and Rita were chatting way up front . . . so I popped in my air pods and listened to my audio book. It rocked my world, and you’ll hear all about it on Monday!

I am really kicking myself for not taking a picture of the snow when we arrived at the cottage. We have a very long, steep driveway and then several long steps up the walkway to the house, and all of it was covered with about 15″ of untouched snow! Getting everyone from the car to the house was comical, but our smiles quickly faded once we realized it was only 40 degrees inside. We have the furnace set to kick on at 55 degrees . . . but apparently that doesn’t happen when your furnace BREAKS! ahhh!
So there was no heat and no water . . . because everything was frozen! We have a battery operated fireplace, so we turned that on and plugged a space heater in front of it. I lugged the cooler inside and made some sandwiches for lunch, and then after that Matty tinkered around trying to fix things while waiting for the furnace repair people to get there and I went outside and tackled A LOT of the snow.

Oh, and we also discovered that two of our three toilets were cracked!

The furnace repair people arrived so quickly and eventually got the furnace working, but the water was a different story. Sarah and Brian were driving in from Illinois, and were quickly reaching the portion of their drive where they’d need to either continue on their way to the cottage or detour to our house. We decided that since there was supposed to be nine of us at the cottage, it was too risky to hope that the pipes would thaw quickly enough and that the one non broken toilet would actually work once it unfroze. So, four hours after our two hour drive to the cottage, we loaded back up and drove back home!
Everyone arrived at the house by 7:30pm on Friday, we picked up some pizza on our way home, and we had some happy kiddos . . . and tired adults!

Baths, a show, and then straight to bed!

We woke up on Saturday morning and the kiddos played together for hours. It was wonderful! These two were so cute together all weekend!


I blew up some balloons, and they entertained the kiddos all weekend long.

Excuse my hand in the corner of the picture, but these kiddos were so cute during our dance party. The Freeze Dances were their favorites!


After lunch we loaded up and went sledding on a hill in town. It was our first time going there, and it definitely won’t be our last. We had so much fun!


Look at that blue sky!! . . . and Sarah flying down the hill!


Emily is definitely our most cautious child, but she loved every minute of it!

And so did this guy!

I walked the big kiddos over to the park, and they played for a bit while the others finished sledding.




We took advantage of having everyone together to celebrate Matty and Sarah’s birthdays! Matty’s was this past Sunday and Sarah’s is on Saturday. We made chicken paprikash for dinner and hot fudge sundae cake for dessert.

These kiddos wake up and immediately get to playing!


After lunch on Sunday we took the kids bowling in town. This was the first time they’d all bowled together, and they had a blast!

The birthday boy! Beers and bowling aren’t the worst way to celebrate your 38th birthday.




By the time dinner, bath, and bedtime were done on Sunday . . . I was done too! I snuggled up on the couch with Penelope and stayed there for quite some time.

And speaking of Penelope . . . she learned a new trick this week! She figured out that she can see everything going on out front if she stands on this table upstairs in our loft. #baddoggie

What a crazy weekend! The cottage certainly didn’t ruin the entire weekend, but it definitely put a damper on our Friday. A plumber is going there sometime this week, and then Matty and Brian will head up there next week sometime to assess the situation . . . and put in some new toilets!
This weekend is shaping up to be much calmer than last weekend; all we have on the schedule is a movie night to watch The Croods 2.
Have a great weekend!
XOXO
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